A showmance is a romance that forms between houseguests inside the Big Brother house — usually fast, always watched, and almost never survives the summer. The word arrived with the show in 2001 and the house has been inventing variations on it ever since.
A flirtmance is not the same thing: sustained flirting that never becomes a relationship inside the house. A bromance is not either — a close friendship, usually between two men, that the season treats as a defining bond. All three words were defined on air in a single Big Brother episode, and the house has added at least nine more since.
- Seasons covered: 1 through 28, 2000 to 2026.
- Marriages we can confirm: six, from couples who announced them themselves.
- Seasons with no showmance at all: two — the first, and the All-Stars season of 2020.
- Earliest showmance on record: Will and Shannon, Big Brother 2, 2001.
- Longest-running: Jeff and Jordan, together since 2009.
- The season with the most: Big Brother 15 — a houseguest counted six among sixteen players.
- Where the vocabulary was defined: Big Brother 7, on air, 3 September 2006.
Which Big Brother couples are still together?
Six. Those are the couples who have said so themselves, publicly, and where we can point to the thing they said and the date they said it.
That number is smaller than the lists you will find elsewhere, and it is smaller on purpose. Plenty of couples get reported as together on the strength of a photograph or a retrospective. We only count a couple if one of them has said it.
- Jeff and Jordan — Big Brother 11. Married, and together since 2009. They talk about their life together publicly and regularly; the most recent is from June 2026. The longest-running relationship the show has produced.
- Rachel and Brendon — Big Brother 12. Married. Speaking as a married couple as recently as July 2026, when Rachel raised the idea of renewing their vows for a fifteenth anniversary.
- Jessica and Cody — Big Brother 19. Married, with children. Jessica’s own post in October 2025 is the most recent thing either of them has said about it.
- Bayleigh and Swaggy C — Big Brother 20. He proposed on the finale stage; they married in 2019. Both described themselves as married with children on camera in March 2026.
- Nicole and Victor — Big Brother 18. Married, and still together as of their own announcement in February 2026. Not a showmance — see below.
- Daniele and Dominic — Big Brother 13. Married in January 2013, and both spoke about it at the time. We have nothing recent from either of them, so we say they married and we stop there.
Correct as of October 2025 — the date of the oldest statement any of the above rests on. Everything else here is from 2026.
Two that are always listed wrong
Nicole and Victor were not a Big Brother 18 showmance. Nicole was in a showmance that season with Corey. Her relationship with Victor started well after the season ended. It is a real marriage and it belongs on this page — just not in the season 18 entry.
Memphis and Christmas were not a Big Brother 22 showmance either. They were close in the house and it was noticed, but Memphis told Nicole in October 2020 that what she was seeing was “just him being friendly.” They married after the season and later divorced.
Which Big Brother couples have split up?
Only the ones where somebody involved said so. No reasons are given here, because in most cases none was given publicly, and it is not our business to supply one.
- Mike and Krista — Big Brother 2. Engaged on the finale stage in September 2001. Krista ended it herself that November.
- Jackson and Holly — Big Brother 21. Both said separately in June 2020 that they were no longer together.
- Haleigh and Fessy — Big Brother 20. Haleigh posted in July 2020: “Fes and I have made the decision to split ways.”
- Tyler and Angela — Big Brother 20. Angela said on her own channel in February 2023 that they had separated the previous August.
- Kyle and Alyssa — Big Brother 24. Kyle announced it in January 2023; Alyssa shared the same statement.
- Taylor and Joseph — Big Brother 24. Together for around six months after the season. Taylor announced the end in April 2023 and said they would stay friends.
- Christian and Alyssa — Big Brother 23. Official on finale night, over roughly forty-eight hours later. Both confirmed that timeline.
- Tucker and Rubina — Big Brother 26. Both wrote their own statements in May 2025.
- Matt and Makensy — Big Brother 26. Together from December 2024; Makensy said publicly in October 2025 that it had simply ended.
Every other showmance on this page ends where the season ends. Not because they all failed, but because nobody involved has said otherwise in public, and we would rather leave a gap than fill it with a guess.
What is a flirtmance?
Flirting that never becomes a relationship inside the house. The distinction was drawn on air by Will during Big Brother 7, and his definition is still the working one:
Will · Big Brother 7 · 3 September 2006
“Flirtmance is kind of like a showmance, but it’s just flirting.”
He was describing his own summer. Will and Janelle spent Big Brother 7 in the most watched flirtmance the show has had — constant, deliberate, entirely hands-off, and with other people waiting for both of them outside. Neither ever called it more than that.
The best flirtmances since have all had the same shape: two people the house is certain are together, who are not. Lane and Britney in Big Brother 12. Ian and Ashley in Big Brother 14. Tiffany and Kyland in Big Brother 23 — a word she used about it herself. Drew and Melody in the current season.
What is a bromance?
A close, non-romantic friendship the season is built around. The word predates Big Brother by five years — it turns up in a surfing magazine in April 2001 — but Will applied it to himself and Boogie in the same Big Brother 7 episode, and it stuck to the show permanently.
The ones that decided seasons: Will and Boogie, who ran Big Brother 7 as Chilltown. Dan and Memphis, the Renegades, who reached the final two of Big Brother 10 without the house ever seeing it. Derrick and Cody, the Hitmen, neither of them nominated all of Big Brother 16. Jag and Matt, the Minutemen, who took both finale chairs in Big Brother 25.
Houseguests know the difference and say so. Devin, on his partnership with Caleb in Big Brother 16: “We don’t need a showmance. We just need a bromance.”
Does a showmance help or hurt your game?
The house has argued about this for twenty-five years and one player made both cases himself, two months apart.
In July 2009, sitting in the dark with Lydia early in Big Brother 11, Kevin laid out the pessimist’s version. Relationships never come out of this show, he told her, because there is too much manipulation in it. Then the line that has aged better than anything else said on the subject:
Kevin, to Lydia · Big Brother 11 · 13 July 2009
“Females never benefit from the showmances. Never. It’s always the males.”
Two months later the same house had watched Jeff and Jordan become the most popular couple the show had produced, and watched America hand Jeff a Coup d’État on the back of it. Natalie put it to Kevin that Jeff owed the whole thing to being one half of a showmance. Kevin did not argue.
Kevin · Big Brother 11 · 11 September 2009
“I guess we got got, because showmance is a strategy.”
Both are true, which is why the argument never ends. A showmance doubles your loyalty and halves your options, and it paints a target most seasons take down before the jury Judd put the practical objection plainly on our feeds in Big Brother 15: “that is why I don’t want to do the showmantic thing with Jessie, because I don’t want someone to put us up for that.”
The counter-argument is that some players have used one deliberately. Taylor and Joseph invented one in Big Brother 24 purely as cover — Taylor’s own word for it was a fauxmance, and its purpose was to give the pair an excuse to disappear together and talk game. They ended it themselves once it started drawing the wrong attention.
What are all the Big Brother “mance” words?
Showmance is only the first one. The house has been building on it since 2006, and most of the additions were invented by houseguests in the middle of the night rather than by the show.
The whole family was defined on air in one episode. On 3 September 2006, in Big Brother 7, Will worked through showmance, flirtmance, fauxmance and bromance in a single segment, sorting his own summer from Boogie’s. Nothing before or since has codified it that neatly.
In order of earliest recorded use:
- Showmance — a romance formed inside the house. Appears in theatre writing as early as 1999, describing actors who fall for each other. Attached to Big Brother from 2001, and to Will and Shannon in particular.
- Bromance — a defining male friendship. In print outside the show by April 2001. Earliest use on record inside Big Brother: Will, on the Big Brother 7 broadcast, 3 September 2006.
- Flirtmance — flirting that never becomes a relationship. Earliest use on record: Will, Big Brother 7, 3 September 2006.
- Fauxmance — a showmance performed for the game. Earliest use on record: Will, Big Brother 7, 3 September 2006, describing his own with Janelle.
- Homance — Boogie’s term for what he had with Erika, offered on air as a denial that it was a showmance at all. Big Brother 7, 2006.
- Floatmance — a pairing with a floater. Earliest use on record: Ian, 16 August 2012, on his own with Ashley — “Nobody gets between me and my floatmance.”
- Blowmance — blunt house shorthand for a pairing seen as one-sided. Used on the feeds on 29 June 2013, by Amanda to Jeremy.
- Showmantic — the adjective. Earliest use on record: Judd, 15 July 2013.
- Snugglemance — Candice’s downgrade of her own pairing with Howard. Big Brother 15, 17 July 2013.
- Nightmance — Howard’s counter-offer for the same pairing, the same night.
- No-Touch-mance — Candice’s verdict on Ginamarie and Nick, the same night.
- Gingermance — Candice again, on Andy and Spencer, both redheads, also the same night.
Four of those came out of one conversation.
Big Brother 15 counts its showmances, 1:40am
17 July 2013. Helen has decided to take stock.
Big Brother 15 · 17 July 2013 · 1:40am
Helen: “This is the most Showmantic season ever.”
Candice: “Me and Howard.”
Ginamarie: “What the hell were me and Nick in?”
Candice: “Ya’ll were in a No-Touch-mance.”
Helen: “When you spend all of your time with someone, that’s a showmance. There’s 6 showmances. We only have 16 houseguests.”
Candice: “Well, technically, Andy and Spencer are in a Gingermance.”
Howard: “That’s a nightmance.”
Candice: “Snugglemance.”
Helen: “And Andy and I are in a domestic partnership. Ours is the most serious.”
And the ones the audience made up
These came from viewers rather than houseguests, which is a different thing and worth keeping separate. Stalkmance — for Caleb’s pursuit of Amber in Big Brother 16. Cuddlemance, for a pairing that never got past the sofa. Friendmance, unmance and overmance, all invented on the fly by people watching and arguing about what they were looking at.
Every Big Brother showmance, season by season
Seasons 1 to 28. Empty seasons are listed as empty, because an empty season is a fact.
Several of these seasons have a full hub of their own, with every eviction and competition: Big Brother 6, Big Brother 7, Big Brother 8, Big Brother 10, Big Brother 11, Big Brother 12, Big Brother 13, Big Brother 14, Big Brother 16 and Big Brother 17.
Big Brother 1 · none2000
No pairing formed that meets any of the definitions on this page. The only season before the word existed.
Big Brother 2 · where it started2001
Showmance. Formed in the first week and dominated the early game. Will ran the strategy; Shannon took the blame for it and was evicted in week three. The first showmance the show is known to have had.
Showmance. He proposed on the live finale. She ended the engagement in November, saying it was not the same outside the house as it had been inside it.
Bromance. Chilltown, and the template for every alliance of two that came after.
Big Brother 3 · Eric and Lisa2002
Showmance. Brief, heavily featured, and ended by his early eviction — which left Lisa playing alone. She won the season.
Big Brother 4 · David and Amanda2003
Showmance, formed in week one despite a season twist built around past partners. The first pairing to become physical on camera. She was evicted first, he followed two weeks later.
Big Brother 5 · the one that cost a place in the final two2004
Showmance, and still the model some feed watchers hold up — they socialised with the whole house by day and paired off at night, and it never wrecked his game. At the final three Drew won the Head of Household and evicted her. He then won the season.
Showmance. Read as a power couple immediately and targeted for it. She lasted three weeks.
Big Brother 6 · Howie and James2005
Bromance. The male core of the Sovereign Six, loud and loyal in roughly equal measure.
Not a showmance — they arrived together as a couple, cast as part of that season’s twist. Listed here only because they are often counted by mistake.
Big Brother 7 · the season that named everything2006 · All-Stars
Every term on this page except the newest was in use in this house, and on 3 September Will defined four of them on air in one segment.
Flirtmance, and the most watched one the show has had. Constant, deliberate, hands-off, and with partners outside for both of them. Will was open with her that he was playing it up as part of his game.
Showmance on her side, strategy on his. It carried them both to the final two and she found out on the night what it had been. He refused the word showmance for it on air and offered his own instead.
Bromance. Chilltown reunited, and they ran the season on it.
Big Brother 8 · Eric and Jessica2007
Showmance, formed while Eric was secretly taking orders from the audience as America’s Player — including orders that worked against her. It survived the season and about ten months outside.
Showmance. Immediate, and cut short by his early eviction.
Big Brother 9 · the season that paired people on purpose2008
Houseguests were assigned partners as a format twist. An assigned pair is not a showmance and the two are constantly conflated.
Showmance, and the cautionary tale the next season’s houseguests studied. Chelsia afterwards: “Showmances are baaaad!”
Assigned as partners and never mutual. She stayed attached; he spent the rest of the season avoiding it.
Arrived as a couple. Not a showmance, and often miscounted as one.
Big Brother 10 · Ollie and April2008
The season’s dominant arc, and one the rest of the house treated as a voting bloc to be removed. Ollie studied the previous season’s mistakes out loud on the feeds, trying not to repeat them.
One-sided. Jessie’s attention was elsewhere for most of it.
Bromance. The Renegades, formed in total secrecy, and they took it to the final two.
Big Brother 11 · Jeff and Jordan2009
The most popular couple the show has produced, and the longest-lasting. America handed Jeff a Coup d’État partly on the strength of it. Jordan won the season. They are still together.
Showmance, physical and unstable, and complicated by Jessie’s parallel closeness to Natalie.
Brief and openly discussed by the rest of the house.
Big Brother 12 · Brenchel, and the secret one2010
Together within days and targeted relentlessly for it. Rachel rejected the word throughout — “Brendon and I aren’t in a showmance, we are in a relationship.” They married in 2012 and are still married.
A showmance they tried not to have. They agreed on the feeds it would ruin both their games and then had it anyway, hiding it badly. Being found out cost her the game.
Flirtmance. Everyone in the house and most people watching expected it to become more. It never did.
Big Brother 13 · Daniele and Dominic2011
Flirtmance inside, romance outside. They were allies and friends in the house and nothing more; the relationship started after his eviction. They married in January 2013.
Back as an established couple and targeted as one from the first week.
Big Brother 14 · Shanielle and the floatmance2012
One-sided for most of the season and manipulated by Dan, who used her feelings to engineer the blindside that took Shane out.
Floatmance — his word, and the term’s earliest use on record. Also one-sided. Ian eventually voted her out himself: “Nobody gets between me and my floatmance.”
Kissed on the feeds in mid-August, and Frank’s immediate concern was less the showmance than what people would say about his bromance with Boogie.
Big Brother 15 · six showmances, sixteen houseguests2013
More pairings, and more vocabulary, than any season before or since.
Ran the house from the master bedroom for most of the season, and were the most polarising pairing on the feeds.
Part of the aggressive early power bloc, and targeted as a unit for it.
A first-week pairing that ended with the season’s first eviction.
Neither of them would use the word. She called it a snugglemance; he called it a nightmance.
One-sided, and given its own name by Candice: a No-Touch-mance.
Flirtmance, and the one Judd deliberately kept at arm’s length so the pair of them would not be nominated together.
Bromance, or a Gingermance, depending which houseguest you asked that night.
Big Brother 16 · Zankie and the Hitmen2014
Close, physically affectionate, strategically entangled, and eventually poisonous. The season is remembered for it.
Bromance. The Hitmen ran the house from the shadows and reached the final two without either being nominated.
A secret showmance neither wanted the house to see, and one they repeatedly tried to talk each other out of.
Not romantic, and treated by the house as though it were, which cost her.
Entirely one-sided, and the pairing that gave the audience the word stalkmance.
Big Brother 17 · Austin and Liz2015
The last showmance standing that season, and it reached the final six untouched — helped considerably by Liz sharing the game with her twin.
The early power couple, running the house until a blindside split them.
Big Brother 18 · Nicole and Corey2016
The season’s actual showmance, and the one usually left out of the retellings. They reached the final four and Nicole won.
Lopsided, and it cost her the game while he carried on without it.
Bromance, and it survived Victor being evicted and returning twice.
Not a showmance. They were not romantically involved in the house at all — that came later, and it lasted. They are married.
Big Brother 19 · Jody against the house2017
Together almost immediately and ostracised by the whole house for it. Splitting them was openly celebrated as the move of the season. They married in 2018.
Unbalanced — he was committed, she kept her distance to protect her game.
An isolated pair all summer. He took game penalties on her behalf.
Not romantic, but inseparable enough that the house nominated them together specifically to break them up.
Big Brother 20 · three at once2018
Immediate, and cut short by his week two eviction. He came back on finale night and proposed on stage. They married in 2019.
Grew out of a three-way tangle in the first fortnight, and one vote from that fallout decided a 7-6 eviction.
Kept secret for weeks specifically to protect their alliance, and it worked — they controlled the season.
Bromance, joked about in the house as practically a showmance, and nominated together to break it.
Big Brother 21 · and one that happened in the jury house2019
Short-lived, and it came first. Jackson pulled away specifically because he did not want to be seen as half of a pair. She later called it her failed showmance.
Emerged directly out of that, and became the season’s enduring couple. They reached the final two together.
Formed inside the season’s dominant alliance and openly acknowledged in the house.
Nick’s actual showmance in the main house.
Not a showmance. Nothing romantic happened between them in the house — Kat has said she disliked him when she was evicted. It began in the jury house afterwards.
Big Brother 22 · none2020 · All-Stars
No romantic relationship formed inside this house. The second season on this page with nothing to record, and the only All-Stars season without one.
Close enough to be noticed, and not a relationship. Memphis told Nicole it was “just him being friendly.” They married after the season and later divorced.
Not romantic, and the pair the house feared most. Nominated together in week three specifically as the old-school bloc.
The Root. Cody took Enzo to the final two over a former winner.
Big Brother 23 · Christian and Alyssa2021
The season’s actual showmance, fast and highly visible, and ended by his week five backdoor. Official on finale night, over two days later.
Flirtmance — her word for it.
A crush she deliberately suppressed. She said afterwards she kept her distance because she knew he had to go eventually.
Not a showmance. “In the game, nothing ever happened” — Claire. The relationship began in the jury house.
Big Brother 24 · the invented one2022
A fauxmance, invented on purpose. Taylor said on camera in August that it was useful because it let them slip away and talk game. They agreed to end it once it started making them a target.
The season’s real showmance, and a difficult one — they were on opposing sides of the house for most of it.
Late, genuine, and separate from the fauxmance. They reached the final two together.
Bromance, and visible enough to brand them a dangerous duo before week two.
Big Brother 25 · AmeriCory and the Minutemen2023
Weeks of long strategic conversations that turned into the season’s main pairing.
Real on her side. He told an ally in August that she helped pass the time and that he was there to play, not for a showmance — while hiding a secret family connection from her.
An intense attachment in week one, ended by her week two eviction before it became anything.
Bromance. The Minutemen dominated the endgame and took both finale chairs.
Big Brother 26 · Tucker and Rubina2024
Resisted at first, because he understood exactly what a showmance does to a target. It became unmistakable anyway. She said her closeness to him was why she went on the block.
Nine days together in the house before his eviction, and no relationship until months afterwards. Usually listed as a showmance; it was not one.
Not romantic, and the tightest duo in the house — they engineered the vote flip that broke the season’s main alliance.
Big Brother 27 · Rylie and Katherine2025
Started with his early interest and her resisting even the appearance of a flirtmance. She came round. His eviction came 5-4, one vote, after an argument in the house that showmances form automatic voting blocs.
A crush, not a relationship. He said during the season that she was his type and that he had come to play the game rather than have a showmance.
Bromance, obvious by mid-July, and Zae was evicted partly to break it up.
Not a romance, despite the nickname and a Zingbot routine built on it. Morgan has said her side was strictly platonic.
Big Brother 28 · in progress2026 · season still airing
This season has not finished. Everything below is where it stood at the end of August; nothing here is an outcome.
The season’s first, and the house was calling it a showmance by mid-July. Week two was built around splitting them and Rome went home on 23 July.
Flirtmance, openly so by August. On 27 August, after Mallory’s eviction, Melody refused to speak to him.
Close and complicated rather than a formal showmance. Barrett said in July he felt bad lying to her because he liked her. He refused to vote her out. She was evicted on 27 August.